Worship of Kazakhstan leaders hits new height

AP, ALMATY, Kazakhstan

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev gestures during a ceremony to mark the Day of the First President in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Saturday.

Photo: Reuters

Kazakhstan on Saturday observed a new holiday lauding Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, part of a growing cult of personality around the leader of the sprawling, resource-rich former Soviet republic.

The highlight of First President’s Day, which marks the anniversary of Nazarbayev’s first election in 1991, was a carefully choreographed pageant by about 30,000 performers in an arena in the capital, Astana, including mass singing and banner-waving. Across the country, schoolchildren and state employees held demonstrations of affection in his honor.

The 72-year-old Nazarbayev exercises extraordinary dominion over Kazakhstan’s political life. In the most recent presidential election in 2010, he pushed aside three token rivals to win 95 percent of the vote; international monitors criticized the election as unfair.

He receives blanket, praiseful coverage from state news media, while the government has cracked down on independent outlets.

In the run-up to the holiday, state media lauded him as a visionary who prevented the ethnically diverse country from plunging into bloodshed like that in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and equated him with the US’ founding fathers.

Observers say this is partly old-style cult of personality, but also an attempt to cement a unifying element in a vast and sparsely populated, multi-ethnic country of 16.5 million that some fear could one day be torn apart by clan rivalries and regional loyalties.

“Kazakhstan’s statehood still lacks a symbol uniting all of its citizens,” said Marat Shibutov, a well-known political commentator. “That is why this holiday has appeared.”

All across the country, billboards bear Nazarbayev slogans identifying national strength in ethnic unity. Russian-speaking ethnic Slavs make up around a fourth of the population, and there are also substantial German, Tatar, Uyghur and Turkish communities, among a dizzying array of ethnic groups.

The development of Kazakh nationalism has been fervently resisted by Nazarbayev, although tight controls over the media make it difficult to assess the strength of underlying social tensions. Occasional violent outbursts of local village disputes that play out along ethnic lines offers only a hint of what some see as a grave danger in waiting.

Making Nazarbayev an inescapable part of public life is a task that has been undertaken with gusto by government media.

In 2010, the ever eager-to-please parliament bestowed upon the president the title of Elbasy — “leader of the nation.” The position gives him the power to approve important policies after he retires and grants him lifetime immunity from prosecution for acts committed during his rule.

In the run-up to Saturday’s holiday, a day of lectures was held in Astana at Nazarbayev University to celebrate the leader’s much-trumpeted legacy, including his decision to get rid of the nuclear weapons arsenal that Kazakhstan inherited in the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev, a senior UN official and Kazakhstan’s former foreign minister, said Nazarbayev had resisted overtures from pariah states.

“In early 1992, the foreign ministry received a letter addressed to Kazakhstan’s president from Libyan revolutionary leader Muammar Qaddafi proposing to hold onto the nuclear arsenal,” Tokayev said. “Billions in assistance were offered in return.”